The proposals for national policy statements on energy - Energy and Climate Change Contents


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 540 - 549)

WEDNESDAY 27 JANUARY 2010 (afternoon)

MS MARIANNE BIRKBY, MS PAULINE PRESTON, MR IMITAZ MOHAMED AND MS JENNY HAWKES

  Q540  Dr Whitehead: Then, after that had taken place and after the land had been purchased, those sites were placed within the NPS document. That is your understanding, is it?

  Ms Hawkes: Yes.

  Q541  Sir Robert Smith: From your understanding of the options, were the options subject to successful designation by the NPS?

  Mr Mohamed: The options themselves were signed about the end of October, beginning of November. That would indicate that RWE were in negotiations previous to this—this would be 2008—and, specifically, the options relate to buying the site on 30 October 2009 for a specific sum. This is after the SSA process. In fact, if you look at it, you have created a process where a major company got in at the first level for an option price of £25,000. That is fact.

  Q542  Dr Whitehead: That is on the whole site?

  Mr Mohamed: No, that was on Layriggs Farm. The site, we were told, was initially 180 acres. That was the option for that site.

  Ms Preston: To clarify that, we still do not know today, once the site was reconfigured to 320 acres, if that land has actually been purchased or not.

  Mr Mohamed: There is a technical problem. We have lived there for 11 months and we still cannot find out the day the site was nominated. It might indicate something, I do not know, but we asked DECC on Saturday; we cannot get an answer on the record.

  Q543  Dr Whitehead: My understanding is, therefore, that there was an option on the 180-acre site.

  Mr Mohamed: Yes.

  Q544  Dr Whitehead: Presumably there is a purchase price per acre subsequent to that option?

  Mr Mohamed: Yes. I can give you the purchase price, if you want, or I can send it to you.

  Q545  Dr Whitehead: The Committee would be very grateful to receive that.

  Ms Hawkes: Certainly RWE at Braystones had already purchased an option to buy three farms and had undertaken exploratory drilling on those farms prior to the announcement.

  Q546  Dr Whitehead: Ms Birkby, just for my information, from what process does the emission of hydrofluoro carbons stem on the Sellafield site?

  Ms Birkby: I think it stems from the reprocessing of waste.

  Q547  Dr Whitehead: Your understanding is that those emissions have not been recorded within the emissions of the site prior to your group obtaining information?

  Ms Birkby: They have quadrupled anyway. The reprocessing seems to be stepping up a gear and creating more liquid waste, despite the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate saying that the high-level liquid waste tanks at Sellafield are in a critical state and should be looked at immediately—this was last year—and that has not happened. It just seems that this whole process is promoting new build at a time when there are cutbacks on the safety aspects of Sellafield, and really we would like the money to be spent on looking after the existing waste as safely as possible to ensure the future viability of Cumbria.

  Q548  Charles Hendry: Are you not bringing together two separate issues there? There is a reprocessing facility, which is a very modern facility, and separately there are the old waste tanks, which are appalling, but that is not the reprocessing facility.

  Ms Birkby: No. Cumbria County Council itself has actually questioned the continued reprocessing, while the NDA are saying that they are going to reduce the amount of waste in the high-level waste tanks, but the process of reprocessing creates more liquid wastes, and so Cumbria County Council themselves have questioned this. How can you be reducing the wastes and carrying on reprocessing, which has never been commercially viable.

  Ms Hawkes: It is not modern.

  Ms Birkby: This is what Duncan was writing about, that was his thing, doing the reprocessing, and he was very concerned, obviously. He was under Sellafield's own compensation scheme for radiation-linked diseases and he is not around any more.

  Q549  Dr Whitehead: Thank you very much, Ms Birkby, Ms Hawkes, Mr Mohamed and Ms Preston. It is the first poem we have had submitted to this Committee in evidence!

  Ms Birkby: Excellent.

  Dr Whitehead: Thank you very much.





 
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